Sunday, 20 May 2012

When I started painting this mini I had an idea to paint his pants in vertical blue and white stripes, making him similar to Obelix but in the end decided that it would add an unwanted comical aspect and went for a catalogue color scheme as it goes better with the dark look of my Guild crew. The first thing you notice when you look at this guy is that he's really massive. The main thing while working with minis like that is that you have to remember to keep your paints thinned down with water all the time as otherwise large areas will look flat. Obviously, that's not the case when you work with an airbrush but that's a different story.

The main thing I had to take into account was how to deal with the large skin area and the claws. I decided to use a pale skin color for the main part and a rotten look for the hands that he wears tied to his belt. Painting chest hair was a bit tricky. I used Vallejo Pale Grey wash and Badab Black for that, applying them with a very thin brush. I also made a decision not to use blood on the claws, choosing to add rust on the blades instead. The metallics were painted with new Army Painter paints and once again I have to stress it - I love them!

his base is quite big so I had to come up with some ideas how to fill this space. I used resin tombstones - my Guild crew has a solid cemetery theme and these were meant to go along with that. And of course, the display base too.
Now, let's work on some LotR minis again.

Thursday, 17 May 2012

...sometimes other duties get in the way. But it's always great to get professional help. My little helper started out intent on wreaking havoc but ended up eating half of my hand and taking a nap afterwards.

I do like furniture from IKEA. To me it's like LEGO bricks, only the scale is different. My involvement in putting these together partly explains no updates with new works. The other reason is, well... Diablo 3 has been released, hasn't it?

Sunday, 13 May 2012

The first thing you can notice if you compare the alternate sculpt and the Dead Justice versions is that they're much smaller than the original mini. I don't know why it's like that but I did feel that the first version was a bit over sized compared to the rest of her crew.

I really like the alternate version. The pose is much more dynamic (you can see the previous one I painted here). Personally, I think that resizing her to proper height was a good idea as it added more subtlety and grace to the model. I used the same color scheme and the same base for the alternative sculpt. The only difference is that now that the blade is visible, I worked it over with some glazes to add it an eerie look. Somehow, my camera doesn't pick that up well and this element looks much worse than in real life...

The Dead Justice is another great sculpt. I like the twisted look of this one with her knees bent and her own hand in hand. I followed the color scheme I used on the other versions pretty closely with the exception of her skin. Here I went for a sickly, grayish look. In order to make it look more undead-like, I used some washes and glazes of purple, red and green. And just to play with the "Dead Justice" idea, I used a tombstone that has R.I.P. engraved onto it.
I had fun working on her and the nice thing is that you can actually use models from the Dead Justice set for gaming as a Ressurectionist crew.
Now I just need to put together the Avatar Justice and take a small family photo. That will have to wait for a while though as I have plenty of stuff that needs to be painted first.

Friday, 11 May 2012

Here's the first of the models used in in the "FORBIDDEN" piece, the Scales of Justice.

In game, it's Lady Justice's personal Totem, extending her will and improving her capabilities. I really like the concept of the model, reminds me of the way people were punished for sins in the Dark Ages.
I used metallics from the Army Painted for the first time here and I have to admit that I'm very happy with them. They're a bit thinner than Citadel paints (at least the old ones, I haven't tried the new range yet) and they're easier to apply onto palette as they're in dropper bottles.

I'm pretty happy with how his skin turned out. I used a slightly darker, more brownish color for the wood as I wanted it to stand in contrast with yellow pants.
When I look at the mini more critically, I see some ares that could have been better. First off, the blood looks too "warm", I think a darker look would make it look more realistic. I've recently come across a great hobby website and an interesting article on painting blood using inks. I'll definitely have to give it a go. Other than that, the ropes look a bit too uniform. I could have worked them over with dry pigments.
Next time I'll write more about Lady Justice (alternate sculpt) and Dead Doxy.

Wednesday, 9 May 2012

"You are forbidden to enter this world!", shouted Lady Justice with confidence.And confident she was, having her trusted Totem and Executioner behind her. The ghastly apparition she was facing was just another nuisance sent by the Resurrectionists and dealing with it shouldn't prove a challenge. Still, she had a tingling sensation in back side of her head that it might be slightly different this time...

At least that's the kind of story I wanted to convey in this piece. I'm still taking part in the Iron Painter painting contest. Technically, I've already been eliminated but it's possible to take part just for fun and upload your works in the "I think I Can" category. Those works are still judged and commented on so it kind of makes up for the effort.
The theme for the current round is "FORBIDDEN" and I decided to kill two birds with one stone by working on my ITIC entry and at the same time deal with my Malifaux backlog.
I will be posting better pictures of the minis soon so stay tuned. If the pic can't be viewed in larger size, you can check this link out.